Cash Advance, T. Moneygreen

Dec. 27, 2006

Bass man T. Money Green has a lot of friends: Beside the 2,277 listed on his MySpace site, he’s also pals with the likes of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, George Clinton and many of the biggest rap, funk and R&B stars in the world.
In fact, he’s played with many of those super stars on scores of gold and platinum albums.
In short, Tony Green is a big, friendly guy who can play the nuts off a squirrel in a high-energy funk show that’s full of special guests, humor and top-flight musicianship. For proof of that, check him out New Year’s Eve when he and his Road Work band play Streeters Bar & Grille in Traverse City.
This is T. Money’s third show at Streeters, playing tunes like “Booty Ride,” “Baby Mama Drama” and “Bass Odyssey” with guest appearances from rappers such as Red and Miss Hypnotic. “I guess I’m kind of like George Clinton’s Dr. Funkenstein,” he says of his guest performers. “For me, it’s all about bringing other people to the stage to make a better show.”
The result is a smoothly tailored funk and rap show from a master of the game.

FUNK ROOTS
Now 50, Green got his start as a teenager in Detroit, experimenting with drums and guitar before settling on bass. “I played bass in a talent show at Mumford High School in 1969 and that’s the one that grabbed me,” he says.
While still in high school, he was offered a job playing with The Dramatics, the legendary soul/R&B group with a long list of top-10 hits to its credit, such as “What You See Is What You Get” and “In the Rain.”
“I wasn’t doing that good in school,” Green recalls. “I was good in band and singing, but bad in subjects like history. So when The Dramatics came along and asked me to play, I was 17 -- just ready to turn 18 -- and my parents said I might as well give it a try.”
Green spent the next 18 years touring with The Dramatics, and wrote their last top-10 hit, “Welcome Back Home.”
But eventually, things started to go south with the band.
“There were too many drugs,” he says. “The Dramatics’ biggest downfall was that the dope would be backstage after the show instead of the fans. I ended things on a sour note with them and went to California to try something new.”
At the time, Green had taken David Ruffin, Jr. under his wing and feared that the son of the legendary soul singer from The Temptations was getting too close to the drug scene. “He wasn’t as soulful as his dad, but he had a beautiful voice and I didn’t want him around the drugs,” Green recalls. “We used to do a show where we’d do a moment of silence for his dad, and that went over real good.”

RAP REVELATION
With a background in R&B and the rock influence of Jimi Hendrix, Green was not a fan of rap music. But on the drive out to California in 1992, Ruffin brought along Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” album. “We played that tape all the way to California, just turning it over and playing it again for 17 hours straight,” he says. “Two months later, I was Dr. Dre’s music director and bass player and I didn’t even know anything about rap.”
But Green was a quick learner.
“We got to California and I met Dr. Dre and he asked me if I could play the parts on his album,” he recalls. “And I said I didn’t know them, but could learn them. Then he asked me how I’d play the parts if I was writing the music myself, and I was so hungry for a job and quick, that I played about 90 bass lines for him right then.”
Green walked away from the meeting with a job offer of $700 per week, and also managed to land David Ruffin Jr. a job singing with Dr. Dre’s team of artists.
For several years, Green performed on the top rap albums of the day, including Snoop Dogg’s hits and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. He introduced Dr. Dre to his friend George Clinton and also met the likes of Tupac Shakur before the rapper/actor was murdered.

NEW START
Green says he met Snoop Dogg when the rapper was “just a baby” who liked to hang around the studio, singing old tunes by The Dramatics. Snoop was astounded to learn that Green had played in the band.
“One day, he was singing one of my songs, and I showed him a copy of the album with my name on the number nine song,” he says. “He couldn’t believe it -- Snoop had me call The Dramatics right then on my cell phone to prove it was me.”
That call led to a collaboration with The Dramatics who were featured in a Snoop Dogg video which was a top-10 hit for several years on music television.
But, as with The Dramatics, things started getting unpleasant with the L.A. rap scene.
“Back around ’95 with Death Row Records, there started to be too much killing going on,” Green says. “Tupac got killed and then the stars’ bodyguards started getting killed. People started getting beat up in the studio and it was just time to go home and try something new. I didn’t want to feel 12 big-ass guys kicking and stompin’ me.”
Green returned to Detroit where he took on rebooting the Second Suite recording studio -- a venue which had once served such greats as Bob Seger. Over the next two years, he worked nonstop to help launch many Detroit-area artists at the studio, in addition to recording hundreds of his own songs.
“That’s what means a lot to me,” Green says. “Someone gave me a chance, so now I like to give someone else a chance to play. If I ever got the right label and distribution deal, it would be like Motown all over again, because I know so many great musicians who deserve to be heard.”
Speaking of which, Green’s own act is smokin’ entertainment. He likes to have fun with the audience, spinning out tunes by the likes of Hendrix or AC/DC before orbiting back to his own funk flavored originals. And the show is constantly changing, with guest rappers taking the mic for the kind of transfixing show you seldom see in Northern Michigan.

T. Money Green performs with Road Work, Red and Miss Hypnotic on New Year’s Eve at Streeters Bar & Grille, with Three Thumbs Up performing in the Liquid Lounge and live DJs in Ground Zero. Advance tickets are $15, with a seafood buffet for $19.99.